When I have decided upon an advertising campaign in any given Latin-American country, the requisite amount of cards, hangers, booklets, posters, banners, and other materials are boxed and shipped to the various ports, consigned to some man of straw. Upon their arrival at the local port they will be stored in the customs warehouse to await claim by the alleged consignee. At the expiration of sixty or ninety, or one hundred and twenty days, in accordance with the local laws, these goods will be advertised for sale to the highest bidder. By previous arrangement with your agent, or some merchant, who has been advised of the dispatch of these goods to his port, they can be bid in very cheaply and delivered to the person most concerned with their use. In Venezuela, for instance, on one shipment alone the duties would have amounted to much more than one thousand dollars, yet the local wholesale druggist bought the entire consignment at auction for eighty-five dollars.
And so we know exactly what the Chancellor of the University of Jabbergrab means when he says to the “Sectional Conference of Teachers of Advertising”:
I believe, also, that the teachers of advertising can make a valuable contribution to the education of our future business men by teaching them how to use the force of advertising intelligently, effectively, and for the human benefit.
It happened that I saw Professor Aughinbaugh mentioned also as “Professor of Foreign Trade at Columbia University.” Wishing to get the record straight, I asked my brother-in-law, who has been helping me get material for this book, to write Professor Aughinbaugh a note asking him where he was a professor. Thinking that possibly he might be away, or ill, or for some other reason might fail to reply, I asked my brother-in-law to write also to New York University for the information. The result was two letters: one from Professor Aughinbaugh stating that “for two years past I have held the same position in New York University and Columbia University. The work became too hard for me and I was obliged to resign my professorship at New York University, now devoting my time to Columbia University.” The second letter was from the registrar of New York University, and stated: “Dr. William E. Aughinbaugh was, from October 11, 1915, to June 13, 1922, Lecturer on Foreign Trade at New York University. He did not, at any time, have professorial status.”
Here was, obviously, a contradiction. Professor Aughinbaugh is listed in “Who’s Who” as Professor of Foreign Trade; and “Who’s Who” states that it publishes no information except that furnished by the person concerned. Also, in a circular of his book, Professor Aughinbaugh is shown as “Chairman of Foreign Trade.” Wishing to make certain about this matter, I dictated to my secretary a formal note, calling Professor Aughinbaugh’s attention to the discrepancies, and asking him to state which title was correct. This note was signed by my brother-in-law and mailed, and no reply to it has ever been received.
But some three weeks after it was mailed, there called at my office in Pasadena a man who announced himself as an agent of the Department of Justice, and gave the name of “A. J. Taylor.” He interviewed my brother-in-law, a young man of twenty-one, and stated that my brother-in-law had been writing letters of a “scurrilous and defamatory nature” to Professor Aughinbaugh; that he had asked questions such as he had no business to ask, that he had made “improper statements” about the wife of Professor Aughinbaugh, and that he was to “stop writing letters,” or he would get into serious trouble. Subsequent inquiry of the Department of Justice in Los Angeles, of the United States Attorney for this district, Attorney-General Daugherty in Washington, and Post Office Inspectors of New York, Washington and Los Angeles, brought the positive statements that no such person as “A. J. Taylor” was known, and no investigation of any such matter had been undertaken. The Postmaster at Pasadena stated that he had received letters from private parties in New York, complaining of “blackmailing” letters written by my brother-in-law; and some ten days later there came a letter from Professor Aughinbaugh to me stating that he had learned from the postal authorities in California that I had written to him, under my brother-in-law’s name, and asking what was the purpose of my inquiry. I replied, stating to Professor Aughinbaugh exactly what was my purpose, and asking him if he would in return answer some questions of mine, as follows:
1. Did you send this A. J. Taylor to see my brother-in-law?
2. Did you tell him to represent himself as an agent of the Department of Justice?
3. Did you make to him any statement which would have justified him in the wholly false and absurd assertion that my brother-in-law had ever mentioned your wife?
4. If you did send this “A. J. Taylor,” who is he, and where can he be located?